Marvel has released 16 new images from Alan Taylor’s Thor: The Dark World. The film finds Chris Hemsworth’s Thor squaring off against the villainous dark elf Malekith the Accursed (Christopher Eccleston). Producer Craig Kyle tells Empire that when the film picks up, Asgard has been at war for almost a year because the cost of rebuilding the bifrost, “but during that time, when the cops were largely cut off from the rest of the universe, you had miscreants that came in from outside the Nine Realms, pillaging and destroying and causing havoc. So that’s what our guys have been doing now – trying to put all these fires out across the Nine Realms.” While I still have my doubts about the movie, I still love the look of Asgard and the characters’ costumes. I’m also impressed by the makeup work on Malekith unmasked (seen above), and want to see more of him in action.

Marvel’s Thor: The Dark World continues the big-screen adventures of Thor, the Mighty Avenger, as he battles to save Earth and all the Nine Realms from a shadowy enemy that predates the universe itself. In the aftermath of Marvel’s Thor and Marvel’s The Avengers, Thor fights to restore order across the cosmos…but an ancient race led by the vengeful Malekith returns to plunge the universe back into darkness. Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.